LuckyNumber7

By all accounts a very smart signing, look forward to seeing him play. Welcome to Saints Tino, hopefully you have a long and successful career here.

Grealish has had more than one good season in the PL, he pretty much single handedly kept them up the season before last. He is a fantastic player which is backed up by the stats. Sancho is a different type of player anyway and was very good at Dortmund, but is totally unproven in the PL and has failed to impress for England so far. As with everything in life if you want something that isn't for sale you have to pay over the odds, Grealish is hugely important to Villa so they have every right to demand £100m or no sale, especially as they are financially well off. Just as we won't (or shouldn't) sell JWP for less than £50m. He's part of the fabric at Saints, our captain and contributes goals and assists and is coming towards the prime of his career. With four years left on his contract, if we sell it's on our terms.

But we can't, which is kind of the point. We cannot afford/attract proven PL strikers, so we either have to look for cheap talent abroad or at the best players in the leagues below, i.e Armstrong. Whoever we sign will come with a large element of risk, but at least AA has shown he knows how to score goals. Whether he can do that in the PL who knows. I would be happy with him signing, although wouldn't want us paying more than £15m as we have other areas that need strengthening too.

Absolutely, jabbed or not I won't be going back as long as they require proof of vaccination, which at this rate will be never. That is not 'getting back to normal'. I won't be blackmailed into taking something against my will. Some people won't be happy until Covid is eradicated, which is never going to happen.

In the few appearances he had for the first team I thought he looked out of his depth tbh. I had been expecting him to show a bit more given the hype around him. Don't think there's any hidden agenda here, truth is probably he just wasn't good enough. Good luck to him at Motherwell though.

I've never heard of Livramento. Is he the next Messi or something?

That only works if clubs are willing to buy the player. Remember Forster turned down a move to Celtic last summer and I don't recall hearing of any interest from any other clubs. I'm sure if we get a half decent offer for Moi we'll accept and hopefully he'll go, but again other clubs don't exactly appear to be queing up to buy him. It's not as simple as saying "just flog him".

As per SKD's link, it has happened.

Since when has booing national anthems been a fineable offence? Pretty obviously it's all part of the match day tribalism and trying to unsettle the opposition, the vast majority of songs in football are aimed at winding up the opposition, are we going to start getting fined for that too? I can understand people not wanting to do it, but getting fined for it is pathetic. If oppo fans booed our anthem I couldn't care less. In fact I'd probably join in as it's so bloody awful!

That would be disastrous imo. Redmond is not and never will be a striker, and whilst Tella looks promising he is largely unproven so far. Armstrong would be a good signing but relying on him and Adams for a whole season with such weak backup would be asking for trouble. Still think Obafemi has something about him but he could do with a season of regular football out on loan. If Ings goes we need another striker.

We may be skint but that doesn't mean we literally have zero to spend. There is still the annual TV and prize monies, crowds should be back next season plus we will sell a few more. Armstrong is being rumoured at £10-15M which should be just about within our reach. Then there's that guy from the Portuguese league we've been linked with (Ellis I think), who was being touted around £5-7M IIRC. Only the board really know what we are capable of spending and they are seemingly fine with keeping him if we don't get a decent offer. Selling now for around £20M doesn't help us a great deal imo.

But Hojbjerg was nowhere near as important to us as Ings is. Personally I wouldn't sell for any less than £30M. Get Adam Armstrong in now to have a season of bedding in and next summer when Ings goes look to bring in another young/cheapish striker. Another thing to note is I believe Liverpool have a sell-on clause so that reduces the fee we get even further.

Blimey, I can only think anyone saying Bednarek is fine starting for us didn't see us play much last season. He's an absolute plodder and should be third choice at best. I would be mildly disappointed if Vesty was sold but we've kind of been expecting it, and if it gives us some decent funds to help rebuild then so be it.

Of course it's subjective to a degree but I think most football fans would agree Villa are a bigger club than Saints. Bigger stadium, fanbase, historically more successful and as you say currently more spending power. Regardless of that it's fair to say if you take your Saints tinted specs off that they are a more attractive proposition than us atm sadly.

It's totally irrelevant what we did a few years ago. In the here and now Saints are going nowhere other than mid table at best. Villa are a bigger club than us, have genuine ambitions of challenging for Europe and he would get a decent pay rise too boot. It's very naive for people to think he would have no interest. I like JWP and hope he stays, he's an important player for us. However if we received a bid north of £50M I think we would have to seriously consider it as we could potentially do some serious rebuilding with that. Problem is I have little faith in the club to spend the money wisely.

He's fine as a backup, which is what he'll be at Leicester, but he has been in decline for a few years now and we needed better as our starting left back. Hopefully that's what we've got in Perraud. I'd have been happy to keep him as a squad option but he obviously felt he needed a change. One of those rare occasions when a move is best for all parties. He was a good servant for us and I wish him well, but not against us obviously!

Messi now a free agent. CHDAJFU?

Southgate is a crap manager but appears to have luck on his side. Such a hard watch though. Certainly similarities to Saints under Puel.

Thought the tournament started quite slowly but it's got better and better, this evening's games were unreal. Delighted the Swiss got through, great entertainment.

Haha that was funny. Wales totally lost their heads. Denmark looked very good. Gutted we didn't sign Maehle when we had the chance.

Absolutely bizarre to keep two holding midfielders on for the whole game when it was crying out for more dynamism. Don't think Phillips made a forward pass all game. Takes Foden off who had been the main threat. Southgate is way out of his depth.

The players wore BLM on their shirts, it's constantly displayed on Sky and in stadiums etc. They started taking the knee around the same time BLM were going on marches and taking the knee, whilst causing chaos in English and US cities. The players and football in general are the ones who associated themselves with BLM and are now confused how people think there is a link?! For as long as they continue (intentionally or not) to show support for BLM then fans have every right to protest that at football matches.

Ridiculous strawman argument, I don't think anyone has said racism doesn't exist at all in football or wider society, though I don't believe it's as big a problem as some make out. Just because I don't support taking the knee doesn't mean I don't find the racist abuse dished out on social media abhorrent. Taking the knee will always for many go hand in hand with BLM and their divisive politics which football chose to associate itself with a year ago. Of course I don't believe all footballers are Marxists who want to defund the police but saying you are taking the knee solely as an anti racism gesture doesn't simply remove all the toxic connotations associated with it. If the aim is peace and unity, I cannot fathom why they continue with something so divisive.

Give him a two year extension then loan him out for the season. He has the raw attributes of pace and strength but technically needs some refining. I think there's plenty of potential and room for improvement there but he needs regular football. Would be disappointed to see him leave on a free next year.

Exactly this, for all the wailing that taking the knee has nothing to do with BLM, we still have Black Lives Matter pasted across our screens every match on Sky, adorning banners in stadiums, and the players even wore it on their fkin shirts! I recall one of those England players kneeling, Tyrone Mings even attended a BLM rally. But yeah nothing to do with BLM... Seriously, the vast majority of people in this country are not racist. Replace taking the knee/black power fist with something less aggravating and drop all reference to BLM and the political baggage associated with it and most people will get on board. I would love to know what people think this is achieving, other than more division. I highly doubt footballers taking the knee is making actual racists change their views.